Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon (2016) Review

Table of Contents

Introduction, Design, & Features

Half a pound doesn't sound like much, but anyone buying gold or silver (or paying their bill at the deli counter) can tell you it's not insignificant. So can business travelers with overstuffed briefcases. So while Lenovo has whittled its superb ThinkPad T460s 14-inch business laptop down to 3.1 pounds and 0.74 inch thin, there are executive-class customers who'll pay for even less—for what the company calls the world's lightest 14-inch business ultrabook (2.59 pounds and 0.65 inch thin). That is, of course, the ThinkPad X1 Carbon, and the system seen here marks its fourth generation.

Aside from being some 10 percent thinner and lighter than last year's model, this year's changes to the Carbon are not overwhelming. Intel's latest sixth-gen "Skylake" processors are under the hood. A flash card reader has been added by popular demand, even if it fits only micro SD instead of full-sized SD cards.

Last year's mini Ethernet port has gone (there's this new thing called Wi-Fi; look into it), replaced by a third USB port. All three of the latter are the familiar, full-sized USB 3.0 without the new, smaller Type-C connector or Thunderbolt 3 capability.

Also gone, oddly enough in this Windows 10 age, is the touch screen option: You have a choice of full HD (1,920x1,080) or what Lenovo calls 2K (2,560x1,440) resolution, but both are non-touch. Presumably, with the advent of the Carbon-as-convertible ThinkPad X1 Yoga, Lenovo figures that screen fondlers will head for that machine instead.

The ThinkPad X1 Carbon starts at $1,142 with a Core i5-6200U processor, 128GB SSD, the 1080p display, and Windows 10 Home. Our test unit featured a slightly quicker Core i5-6300U chip, a considerably quicker 256GB PCIe NVMe solid-state drive, and Windows 10 Pro for $1,471. The 2,560x1,440 screen is $70 extra; you can upgrade the memory from 8GB to 16GB for $120, but must also upgrade to a Core i7-6600U for $210.

Design

Lighter than the 13.3-inch Apple MacBook Air, the X1 Carbon is a 13.1 by 9 by 0.65-inch slab with a curved prow, all in the familiar ThinkPad matte black with subtle etched Lenovo and chrome ThinkPad logos in opposite corners of the lid. As in previous models, the lid is composed of strong but light carbon-fiber-reinforced plastic while the bottom is magnesium alloy (mixed with rare earth metals and dubbed "super magnesium" this year).

The result is a notebook so slim and light you can forget you're carrying it, but free of the flimsy feel that plagues the even lighter (2.16 pounds) LG Gram 14Z950; there's almost no torque when you grasp the screen corners and no flex in the keyboard deck. Indeed, Lenovo boasts that the ThinkPad has survived MIL-STD 810G military and government certification tests plus in-house shock, vibration, temperature, altitude, and other tests for ruggedness.

The micro SD card slot, along with a SIM card slot for mobile broadband (a $139 option at purchase), are under a tiny flap at the back of the laptop. On the Carbon's left side you'll find a mini DisplayPort video output and an always-on USB 3.0 port, along with connectors for the AC adapter and Lenovo's $180 OneLink+ dock. The latter offers four USB 3.0, two USB 2.0, Gigabit Ethernet, two DisplayPort, and VGA ports.

On the right side of the system are two more USB 3.0 ports, an HDMI port, and a headphone/microphone combo audio jack. We'd like to see a USB-C connector but aren't really complaining about the lack of Thunderbolt 3; the X1 Carbon is built for office productivity, not the heavy, drive-array-based video editing or connection to many displays that mobile workstations and their Thunderbolt 3 ports are.

Features

Two 1-watt speakers with no subwoofer is no one's idea of audio ecstasy, but the Carbon does pretty well—it pumps out enough sound to fill a midsized conference room. Piano and bass tracks were clear, though guitar riffs sounded a little ragged at peak volume.

Windows 10's user interface zoom arrives set to 150 percent, which makes text and icons easy to see on the 14-inch, 1,920x1,080 display. The screen offers rich colors and plenty of brightness (at least at its top three or four backlight settings), with IPS technology to provide extra-wide viewing angles. It's a tossup whether we'd prefer this full HD panel or the optional 2,560x1,440 display; the latter promises slightly sharper details for apps such as image editing, but the 1080p screen strikes a good balance of size and resolution for productivity work.

The crown jewel of most Lenovo notebooks (and most MacBooks, causing our favorite clash in mobile computing) is the keyboard. The company veered into a ditch with the second-generation Carbon and its changeable function-key strip, but we're delighted to report that the fourth generation is every bit the equal of the T series, which we called the best keyboard of any business laptop.

Key travel is ample despite the machine's thin profile, with a superb tactile feel. Once you master the trademark ThinkPad layout—the only difficulty, really, is having PgUp and PgDn five rows away from Home and End—you'll be cruising as quickly as you can on any desktop. The two-level backlight is the best we've seen, shining through the keys with hardly any leakage around the edges, while the top row offers handy system shortcuts ranging from summoning Cortana to a microphone mute for conference calls (they team with the Fn key in case you want F5, F6, or whatever).

The famous TrackPoint cursor joystick is in its usual place between the G and H keys, with its mouse buttons below the space bar. Below that is a smooth-gliding touch pad, and to the right of the keyboard deck is a square or touch-style fingerprint reader that we found much easier to use than narrow, swipe-style readers. Above the screen is a rather low-resolution (720p) Webcam that performs well in low-light environments.